When you think you’ve got it bad, imagine yourself on assignment to Liberia. Tech writer David Carr is over there, reporting on how U.N. peacekeepers use technology in the midst of pervasive ruin. He’s got a journal of his travels going; he just arrived in country this week. From his most recent entry:
Arrival was fairly chaotic. Lungi Airport is actually across a bay from Freetown, so I had to buy a helicopter service across. The system, if you can call it that, for getting passengers and their luggage on the old Russian choppers they use involved giving out little wooden “boarding sticks” that say which group you’re part of and at first I didn’t get one of those, only a receipt, so I had to go back and wait in more lines. Once on board, I was one of probably 18 passengers crowded around the perimeter of what looked like the cargo hold, with our luggage piled up in the middle. Near the end of the flight, the helicopter sounded like it might rattle apart. I noticed some of the other passengers crossing themselves. Several times.